JAPAN is one of the shakiest places on earth. Consequently, kids grow up there thinking of earthquakes the way a New Yorker might think of thunderstorms. (They are a thing that happens. Sometimes often.)

Visiting Tokyo over the years, I’d felt the odd tremor here or there, and didn’t think much of it. Turns out, there’s an incredible difference between a bump or two in the night and the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake that rattled the entire planet and moved part of Japan a couple of meters closer to the United States. I can say this with some degree of certainty, having been there this past March, on the day when the earth moved. And moved again. And again. And wouldn’t stop.

Being just north of Tokyo — in the shake zone but away from tsunami risk — meant nothing more than an overnight wait for a train back into town, as well as being too unnerved to sleep much. (Not that one could sleep much, sitting in a chair at a restaurant crowded with hundreds of other people.) Along with most of the rest of the Tokyo metropolitan area, I was damn lucky.

Also, as in any crisis, you adjust. A week on, with 6.0 aftershocks still rattling cages, people in central Tokyo were barely paying attention. By the time I finally flew home to New York, Tokyo almost seemed like Tokyo again. Quiet, yes, less flashy and with a lot of half-empty convenience stores, but definitely on the mend. And things have only improved from there.

This last visit was one in a series — I’ve lost track of how many — over the past decade. Why? Simple. Japan is pretty much one of the world’s most thrilling places. And it all starts with Tokyo, a town built to amaze even the most jaded New Yorker. Few places on earth are quite as perplexing, or alluring. It is at once disarmingly familiar and head-scramblingly exotic.

If you’ve never been, you’re missing out. If you think you can’t afford it, think again. If you think it’s too hard to communicate or get around, you’re wrong. Tokyo is easy, and it can be remarkably affordable, at least from a New Yorker’s perspective. With things pretty much back to rights anywhere you’d normally want to be, it’s also a great time to visit. Not only to experience one of the world’s coolest cities, but to show your support for the country as it recovers from one of the worst disasters in its history.

To get you motivated, here are 10 things about Tokyo that are excellent.

#1 FLIGHTS ARE CHEAPER THAN YOU THINK. Fares to Europe have ballooned so much it’s barely worth going, but Japan has remained fairly steady for some time now. It’s usually possible to find a round-trip fare from New York for under $1,000, including tax. Right now, it can be much cheaper — for example, Delta recently put the route on sale for a little over $500. Round-trip. (Try finding that to London at the moment.) To keep on top of the sale fares, sign up for a Tokyo alert at airfarewatchdog.com.

#2 HOTELS DON’T COST ALL THAT MUCH. An explosion of development and improvements on the local scene over the past decade have resulted in a wide-open hotel market that means deals everywhere you look, These days, there’s little reason to spend more than $150 a night on a room, unless you want to. And you might — Tokyo does have some impressive five-star addresses, much cheaper than they ought to be, considering how good the service is. This summer, we found rates at the top-rated Peninsula — probably the best five-star in the city right now, for a number of reasons — for about $550 a night, including tax.

#3 IT’S ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST INTERESTING CITIES. Tokyo is the kind of city that makes New York look about as exciting as Hartford. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. We have Times Square, they have, like, seven of them. We have a subway, they have one that’s clean and doesn’t stall out every three stations. We have restaurants, they have more Michelin stars than Paris. Deal with it.

#4 TOKYO IS OPENING UP — BIG TIME. If you get there and start to feel like you’re back in Brooklyn, or San Francisco or London or Cape Town, it’s not just you. It’s Tokyo, too. Japan may be uncertain about this whole global-village thing, but as the years go on, Tokyo is starting to feel a lot closer to the rest of the planet. And this isn’t just about all the coffee joints, microbreweries, Doughnut Plant donuts or hipsters wearing flannel shirts — it’s more than just being on the various trend bandwagons. The city just feels a little bit more open to the outside world as time passes. And that’s a good thing.

#5 RIDE THE BEST TRAINS IN THE WORLD. If you want to see what a transport network ought to look like, come here. From the clean as a whistle subways ($1.99 and up) to the even cheaper-to-ride (typical fare $1.60-ish) Yamanote rail line that connects most of central Tokyo’s essential areas in a never-ending loop, to the bullet trains whistling overhead on their way in and out of town, the city is a public transit lover’s dream. It hardly matters where you’re going, when you get on the trains — just riding them, getting to know the various systems (and watching how Tokyoites cope with rush hour) can provide days of entertainment.

#6 THE FOOD IS REALLY THAT OUTSTANDING. The Japanese are nothing if not obsessed with the details, which is why, no matter what you’re in the mood for, you’re often going to find whatever you’re eating to be as good or better than its equivalent elsewhere. From some of the world’s most delectable croissants (try the Echire boutique in Marunouchi, where you can also special-order butter sculptures, for when the occasion requires) to insanely good Italian or French cooking to steaks (among the best in the world — try any of the Japanese cuts on the menu at the New York Grill and you’ll see) or a solid pancake breakfast, you can eat your way around the world in Tokyo pretty much any day of the week — never mind the mindbending and multi-tiered Japanese cuisine. (The sashimi will change your life, yes, but also don’t forget to eat your weight in kurobuta pork cutlets [katsu] and spicy, brown curry).

#7 YOU REALLY DON’T NEED TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE. It helps to know how to say please (kudasai) and thank you (arigato). It also helps to know how to say sorry / excuse me (sumimasen). But the Japanese not only don’t expect you to be able to communicate with them in their native tongue, they sometimes get weirded out when you can. Anyway, all you really need to know, usually, are two simple words — “english” and “menu.” Used in a sentence: “English menu, kudasai!” And if such a thing doesn’t exist, you can usually point to the pictures. Or the plastic models of the food. Bottom line: Nobody needs to starve. And nobody needs to be embarrassed, either — what you should always remember about the Japanese is that no matter how much you try to fit in, you’ll always be a foreigner. Be polite, sure — the Japanese can be obsessively polite — but beyond that, don’t waste a minute trying to impress anyone.

#8 THIS IS ONE OF THE SAFEST CITIES, ANYWHERE. Tokyo is insane, but it can also be fairly relaxing, mostly because the typical tourist will never encounter any sort of trouble, unless you start, say, stiffing various unsavory Roppongi nightspots on the bill. Walk around the back streets of Shinjuku with your map at ten o’clock at night — no big deal. There are touts, sure, but scamming tourists isn’t high on most Tokyoites’ to-do list. In fact, if you’re ever at a loss, just ask someone for help. Politely. Or, if you’re uncomfortable confronting a stranger, go stand near a train station ticket machine and stare blankly at the fare maps posted above and watch the English-speaking students magically materialize with offers of help. (This tends to work more quickly in places frequented by the younger set, such as Harajuku, and it also tends to work better during off-peak times. At rush hour, people tend to be a hurry, imagine that.)

#9 JUST BEING HERE IS ENOUGH. There are plenty of cities where you want to have a whole list of things to do before you go. Tokyo is not one of these. While it does boast exhaustive shopping, dining, nightlife and cultural scenes, it doesn’t really matter how much or how little you delve into any of it. Just being in Tokyo is enough for most people, the first time out. Or the tenth — ask me how many major tourist attractions I’ve seen in the city over the years. Not many. (I did, however, finally make it to Tokyo Disneyland, more than a decade after my first visit — highly recommended, and cheap, too, with evening passes available after 6 p.m. for just $41 at the ticket windows.)

#10 GETTING THERE IS FASTER AND EASIER. For years, travelers from the United States were forced to fly into the remote Narita airport, an hour or more from the city, a cruel slog after a 12+ hour flight. With the opening of the super-central Haneda Airport to international flights (for example, American now flies to Haneda nonstop) — it’s like LaGuardia, close to everything, but with multiple trains coming right into the terminals — you can get there and get going much faster. It’s Tokyo, after all. You don’t have a moment to spare.